Litecoin Price Under Pressure on its 10th Anniversary, Slides 14%

The Litecoin price is suppressed, trading inside a tight range. However, buyers stand a chance despite stable volumes and determined sellers.

As of writing on Jan 26, the LTC price was down 14 percent versus the USD.

Even with this stagnation, the average trading volumes are decent. For instance, participation is within range, rising three percent to $6 billion on the last day, cementing its position at eight.

Litecoin (LTC) Price Overview

The Litecoin price is in range mode with clear caps at $190 and $110, respectively. The $190 mark is this year’s highs, but at least more than half of the coin’s all-time high registered in December 2017 when the LTC/USD price rallied to $355.

Year-to-date, the LTC price has more than doubled. Still, analysts are confident of more upsides, expecting the coin to swell above $200, breaching psychological round numbers as the coin’s fundamentals align to prop buyers.

The LTC/USD price action is also bound at $100 on the lower end. This is within the lows of Jan 11 bear candlestick, a visible bar from which prices are still ranging in supporting sellers. If this level is broken, odds of a deeper correction towards critical supports at $90 and $60, respectively, will be highly likely.

Overly, the failure of higher highs in the next few weeks and subsequent break below support may see the LTC/USD disintegrate, retesting important levels and marking the end of a three-month rally that has seen Litecoin prices more than doubled.

Litecoin (LTC) Market Movers

While analysts point to bears in the immediate term, the coin’s fundamentals are firm.

The project marked its tenth anniversary on Jan 25. All this time, Litecoin remains one of the largest crypto projects, always in the top 10 in the liquidity leader-board.

It will be integrated by Flare Network, a DeFi protocol.

Flare will be integrating Litecoin ahead of the Flare network launch in Q2. This will allow LTC to be used trustlessly on Flare with Ethereum style smart contracts and gives LTC interoperability and composability. #LTC #Unlockingvalue @LTCFoundation @litecoin /1 of 2

— Flare (@FlareNetworks) January 8, 2021

According to Charlie Lee, a former Coinbase executive and the founder of Litecoin, the project is highly reliable.

Unlike legacy systems, the Litecoin network is always operational. Distributed full nodes are always powering the network, giving its unparalleled reliability, similar to Bitcoin.

Besides, Litecoin has plans to increase the network’s privacy. Through MimbleWimble—an opt-in privacy feature, means coins can’t be tainted/colored, and account holders are banned because of the coin’s history.

December Progress:

The first-ever implementation of one-sided txs on mimblewimble is now complete and ready for testing/review!

MWEB components have been added to the GUI thanks to LTC community members!

Details: https://t.co/0L2LUtf3VJ pic.twitter.com/OVK0laTtxX

— @davidburkett@bitcoinhackers.org (@DavidBurkett38) January 2, 2021

This is an advantage since CEXs mostly list LTC and can freeze trading when there is a stain, for example, finding use in the darknet.

Litecoin's value proposition:
– High liquidity & on every exchange
– #2 supported on ATMs
– 350m @PayPal users
– $104m @Grayscale LTCN trust
– 99% Scrypt hashrate dominance
– MWEB fungibility/privacy
– Low fees & fast txns
– $500b+ value transferred
– 9+ years w/ zero downtime
🚀 pic.twitter.com/YSCwxA57Lb

— Charlie Lee [LTC⚡] (@SatoshiLite) December 21, 2020

Outside of this, Litecoin is one of the few coins supported by PayPal and Grayscale. It also survived when Charlie Lee dumped his stash in December 2017, when LTC’s prices were peaking.

Litecoin Price Prediction

The LTC/USD price is oscillating within an $80 range, visible in the 4-HR chart.

Although buyers are optimistic, a contrarian move may print out as candlestick arrangement suggests.

From a top-down approach, the LTC/USD is bearish. It continues to move inside Jan 21 bear candlestick. While buyers stand a chance, the two bear candlesticks had comparatively higher trading volumes.

Therefore, for buyers to shake off sellers, there must be a break above $165 in the immediate term. If not, and prices crater below the support trend line and $110, the LTC price may fall back to $90. This will confirm sellers of Jan 11 from an Effort versus Results point of view, signaling the end of the current rally.

In that case, bears could target $65, the 78.6 percent Fibonacci retracement level of the October to December 2020 trade range.

Conversely, gains above $175 will rejuvenate buyers aiming at $190.

Chart courtesy of Trading View

Disclaimer: Opinions expressed are not investment advice. Do your research.